Yuppies wasting soup.

I know I’ve been bad about posting lately. I have been busy and stressed out. Blogging can be like therapy, so staying away because of stress is actually not wise. Sorry.

So, at my local Giant, there is usually one express lane with a cashier and one normal lane. The rest are self-check-out lanes. I like them because I am good at the machines, and the Mrs. and I usually go together, so one of us fills the tote bags while the other “bip-bips.” Usually, the folks with cart-loads go to the cashiers, and people at that store are usually pretty good about being patient and not being jerks. The Mrs. has helped old ladies with the machines when they want to give them a try, etc. At another local market, a guy threatened an employee once over self-check-out, etc., but that’s another story.

So we’re behind this guy today. I’m nosy, so I look at some of the stuff he’s buying. Organic this, fresh that, not put into those stupid little plastic bags Same stuff as me, down to my loose tomatoes. He even has some cotton tote bags sporting “Trader Joes” on the side, and they looked dirty and well-used.

But the similarities ended there. Not only was he slow and seemed like he could not read, he was a jackass. Some soup from the deli was not scanning. So when he finished everything else, he just paid. I thought to myself, he’s take the soup — free soup! But no. He left it there. Right in everyone’s way. Which is as good as stealing it. It’s not like they can sell it now. So the soup and the plasticized paper container are wasted. What a wanker. And what a wanker I was for not telling him, throwing it at him or otherwise not letting him do that.

We checked out and filled our totes before he could bag, and he didn’t buy much more than we did. After we left, the Mrs. said, “I guess he just shops at Trader Joes because it’s fashionable.” I said, “What a wasteful d!ck.”

I don’t mean to sound preachy. But yeah. I didn’t stick around to see how big his SUV was. Yeah. But I’ll bet my bike it was big. I know, organic stuff being fashionable has really helped it become more widespread. Same with farmers’ markets. But last time I was at the Waverly Farmers’ market, a lady in a $300 bike helmet butted in front of the Mrs. at the bakers. The same day, some yuppie douch in head-to-toe Eddie Bower didn’t just butt in front of me; he stepped on my feet — both of them. I called him a choice name, but I don’t think he heard me.

I like Whole Foods a lot, and there is one in Mt. Washington — only two or three miles from me, which does not take me long on a bike. But I can’t stand to shop there. They have one bike rack which some jerk always locks a bike to parallel to the rack so that no other bikes fit it, so I have to find a sign that will take a U-lock. If I don’t almost get run over by a Yukon or a Benz on the way in, I can barely get in the door because of the look-at-me’s standing around pretending to read labels like they know what the hell they mean. I know Whole Foods would not be growing without such money-laden tools shopping there along with people who know what they are buying and why they are there. But still.

I don’t want to get into a “who’s greener?” pissing contest with anyone. Or who’s more wasteful after the harassing comments from someone in my department last summer when I all but came out and said that I did not like living in Carbondale (as if that’s such a bad thing). But sometimes the whole “I love the planet, but I need my SUV” thing makes me think and feel how I could just kill a man. But. You know, I’d never actually hurt anybody. I’m just sayin.